


Hazy Shade of Winter

by Ladycat



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Prostitution, Unfinished and Discontinued
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-31
Updated: 2011-05-31
Packaged: 2017-10-19 23:26:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/206367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at the <i>real</i> Pittsburgh, instead of the one QAF displays.  Xander's competent, successful, and very alone until he has two visitors, one welcome and one definitely not.  AU based on Killer in Me (7x13), if Spike had left when he offered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rain

Rain in Pittsburgh was different than in Sunnydale.  It never really got  _grey_  in California, even during the rainy season, hints of sunshine always peeking through.  Pittsburgh was grey.  From the sky that looked like a chalk-board, thick and unmoving with random swirls from an uncleaned eraser adding texture but not relief, to the grey roads underfoot.  The buildings were all grey, even the big one that looked like a castle, its shining mirrored plates dull and nonreflective, and forget about the ones that had started out white or red.  Even the  _cars_ were grey, the rain hissing and pattered like a demented shower, streaking over everything it touched until it, too, was grey.  Grey concrete, grey walls, grey people in their trench-coats and hats, grey puddles people stopped avoiding because there wasn’t any way not to.

The rivers were grey, too, but there was enough yellow mixed in its muddy waves that he didn’t look at it that often.  Water, water, everywhere and no way in  _hell_  was he going to swim there.

The cold was a shock, but where others bitched that in another week or two this was going to be snow, Xander looked forward to it.  He’d only seen snow a few times in his life, outside of television shows, and he had plans to find one of the parks people mentioned so he could make a snowman, when it finally did turn to snow.  Just for the hell of it.  His co-workers thought he was nuts, since they already knew that real snow was grey, too, covered in crap from cars and people and the few bums and animals that were desperate enough to leave whatever shelter they’d found.  Xander knew all that, too.  But he also knew how important illusions were

He was here on a job, of course.  Overseeing a development where steel mills used to be, breaking up the last piece of history the city could claim, and then supplying it with the only means of making money it had left: tourism.  They’d become a nation of tourists and Pittsburgh wasn’t exactly high in the historical significance area.  So he built arcades for twenty-somethings and restaurants for people to waste their middle-management dollars buying drinks, ignoring the teeming mass of college kids that came down to populate the restaurants that were already up.  Who knew that Pittsburgh had so many damned colleges, or that it would hurt Xander so much each time he saw those spoiled, innocent faces, demanding whatever they wanted whenever they wanted it?

His coworkers accused him of hiding, saying if he wasn’t at the site, then he was hiding in his downtown loft, and he was still a young’un, wasn’t he?  Actually what they said was very nearly unintelligible, sometimes, since there really  _was_  a Pittsburgh accent and it was scary.  Full of words like ‘yuns’, whatever that meant, and this disconcerting habit of placing ‘’n’at’ after  _everything_.  And who knew there were multiple ways to say ‘hot’?  But they constantly ribbed him about being an old man at twenty two, although rarely went farther.  The story of where he’d come from—fiancé lost in that weird earthquake that swallowed an entire town—had circulated through the firm and people didn’t press that hard.  Even the two secretaries that had decided he needed a Momma, one of them with an eye to something more, later, didn’t press when he said ‘no’.

Although that could’ve been because he was developing a reputation for having a temper.  Just because he’d chewed out the one kid who Xander had caught  _stealing_. . .

It wasn’t a bad life, over all.  Chatted nights and weekends on his cellphone, sometimes spent a few extra bucks to say hi to Buffy and Giles over in England.  He’d spot a newly-created Slayer every so often, which didn’t surprise him so much as make him sad.

“How many this time?” Willow would ask whenever he called.

“What, I can’t call to just to say hi to my best friend?”

“You could, of course, but you never do.  So how many this time?”

“Two.  Took ’em out last night.  Briana’s gonna be trouble; she’s got ‘religion’.”

That was a problem Willow and her new private school were running into.  Everything  _else_  was fairly easy—a ready-made principle and a boat-load of cash, since Giles had access to the Council’s former funds, were damned useful—so they all accepted it as their karmic retribution.

“Actually, Faith thinks she’s got a way around that.  I’m letting her handle it, for now.  She’s had success with Heather, and by the way, next time you might want to let us know that she was Jewish!”

“What, a name like Heather Shapiro wasn’t a dead give-away?  C’mon, Wills, you’re giving up your Hebrew cred!”  But his mind wasn’t on the jab.  “How’s Kennedy?”

“Still recovering,” Willow said dismissively.  “Faith beat her up pretty badly, but no broken bones or anything, so she’ll be fine in a few more weeks.”

Xander tried not to smirk, wondering how Faith was going to handle a fiery redhead.  He was pretty sure she was up to the task, though.

He did go out to bars, occasionally.  Pittsburgh was a good bar-town, full of lots of places that advertised solely through the blinking neon sign proclaiming whatever the cheapest beer was.  People didn’t talk too much.  And if they did, it was more like: “Man, you see that pass Maddox threw yesterday?  What a fuckin’ wuss.  Cowher’s gone next year, betcha ten bucks.”

“Yeah, right, the Rooney’s are never getting rid of him.  Kept for Knoll for twenty years, didn’t they?  Now, Lemiuex,  _he_  needs to just get the hell out.”

A town with a sport for every month of the year was an interesting place to listen to.

“Xander, why don’t you move to San Francisco?” Dawn asked every time he called.  “I’m  _sure_  we can find you a boyfriend there.”

He didn’t regret telling Dawn.  She knew how to keep a secret and wouldn’t mutter about losing-his-ex-fiancé-trauma and maybe he just needed to get laid, the way he knew Buffy would.  She  _did_  try to find boyfriends for him, long distance, but that was amusing enough to be tolerated.

“Because then I can torment the future yenta by denying her training,” he’d quip, then steer the conversation onto her classes or the latest boy she was chasing.  Dawn was always happy to talk about herself.

Xander avoided most of the gay bars in Pittsburgh—three transvestites a fun time does not make—but there was a diner he liked on Liberty Ave.  Not close enough to Babylon to scream ‘fag’, but the proximity was oddly comforting, so Xander ate a lot of meals down there.  Even started patrolling down there, since he liked the owner and it  _was_  close to Babylon.

Wandering up and down the blocks in the rain wasn’t fun, and he’d been propositioned three times already that night.  Kind of insulting, since he didn’t look strung-out or pregnant, the usual patrons of this particular stretch of road, nor was he wearing bad eighties clothes.  Not too much vamp activity, since he’d cleaned out the nest a few nights ago, but that wasn’t why Xander stayed down here.

“Faggot!”

That was.

Three guys, all drunk and bigger than he was.  “Hey, guys.  Can I join in?”

“Fuck off!”  Such polite people, these Pittsburghers.  Gay-basher number one kicked the curled up form at his feet, producing a pained groan.  “’Less y’wanna be next.”

“Okay.”

That startled the drunks, who turned to peer blearily at him.  “Huh?”

“I want to go next.  Or maybe I can cut in?  You don’t mind, do you?” he asked the prone form.  He couldn't see much, just a black coat and little blood, but it didn’t look too serious.  The rain was washing it away.  “C’mon, be a pal.  Share and share alike, right?”

“Bastard didn’t wanna play,” gay-basher number two—distinguished by an appalling mullet, flat and scraggy from the rain—muttered.  “We fuckin’  _paid.”_

Screw it.  Banter had long ago lost its fun, so Xander didn’t speak as he punched and kicked like he actually knew what the hell he was doing.  Which he kind of did—apparently vamp-training was useful when you were up against humans, particularly the drunk, bullying kind.  They scattered after Xander broke gay-basher-number-one’s nose, trailing insults and booze-breath in their wake.

Xander ignored them, crouching next to the bashee.  “Hey, you okay?  Anything broken?”  He didn’t touch, just used a soothing voice to try and convince the guy to uncurl a little.  “There’s a clinic not too far from here; they don’t ask questions and I’ve got a couple of bucks, if you need.  It’s not much, and it’s not payment for anything, just a chance to get you some—”

The form slowly uncurled, revealing dyed hair and a bruised and battered face that Xander had no trouble recognizing.

“Still the fucking white-hat,” Spike ground out, ignoring Xander’s belated attempt to help him sit up.  He touched his face gingerly, patting his nose and grimaced when he encountered flesh already beginning to swell.  He looked like a drowned rat in the rain, his lips tinged blue.  “Least the bastards didn’t break it.  An’ I fucking  _gave_  them what they wanted.”

Spike.  Alive.  Well, he knew Spike was alive, because Buffy had said that he’d left voluntarily, because— “The trigger!  You’re still—!”

“The First’s still  _around?”_   Spike butt-slid backward, looking around wildly like the First was going to loom up somewhere, humming whatever the trigger had been to turn Spike into a psycho.

The utter panic cleared Xander’s head and he put a calming hand on Spike’s arm.  “No, no, the First’s gone.  Buried under what used to be Sunnydale.”

Spike calmed slowly, eyes blinking rapidly to clear away drops of rain, scanning the area like he couldn’t be sure.  That, more than anything, told Xander that Buffy hadn’t been lying or putting on a brave face on anything.  Spike had left to protect them, no more and no less.

“Heard about that.  Knew she could do it.  She—she’s okay, then?”

Now was  _not_  the time to talk about Angel, an amulet, and Angel’s attempts to become corporeal again, not when Spike was sounding like his hope of the future rested on the answer.  Like he could handle living in Pittsburgh, turning tricks for a living, so long as Buffy had saved the day.  No—so long as she was  _happy._

“Come on,” he said, holding out his hand.  Spike didn’t even look at it, eyebrows lifted so he looked absurdly young and desperate, needing the answer.  “Yes, she’s fine.  She’s over in England with Giles, at the moment.  Look, I’ll tell you all about it, later.  When we’re dry.”

Hearing only the important parts, Spike’s eyes closed for a moment.  Let his lips part in what Xander knew had to be a prayer of thanks, tension draining from his body to leave him limp and joyous on the ground, a fallen angel given reprieve.

It looked—final.  Scarily so.  “You aren’t going to take a walk in the sun, are you?  Not that we  _have_  sun, anymore.”

“Still haven’t lost your touch for the inappropriate, have you, Harris.”  Spike opened his eyes slowly, zeroing in on the patch Xander had really hoped he’d missed.  Not sure how Spike could’ve, though, big and black over his left eye, even with the rain obscuring everything.  “That from the fight?”

“Sort of.  Will you get up?  I’m cold and my apartment’s warm.”  He offered his hand again, not particularly happy that his mouth had chosen to sound annoyed, but watching Spike just let go like that was disturbing.  “Spike?”

This time Spike’s eyebrows quirked in confused amusement that always came out sardonic.  Eyebrow-language was an inexact science, but Xander was pretty sure he was reading Spike correctly.  “Not going with you, Harris.  Got a place, not far from here.”

“Uh huh.  And would this be a card-board box, or are you in an actual dumpster?”  He could guess where Spike was ‘living’ and no way in hell was he going to let him go back to the lovely spot where the hookers too poor to get a place always ended up.  Didn’t take a genius to figure out what Spike was doing, although how he’d ended up in Pittsburgh was a story Xander wanted to hear.

“Thanks for letting me know,” Spike said, which was no answer at all, but then he was getting up and heading back down the alley.  The  _other_  direction.

“What—Spike, what are you doing?  I’m offering you a place to stay!”

Spike kept walking, although not fast enough that Xander couldn’t catch up.  “S’okay, Harris.  I’ve got a place.  I’m good.”  Which far more polite than his usual ‘sod off’, but Xander heard the dismissal all the same.

Nu uh, his mind said.  There was a great big two-bedroom apartment that rattled emptily whenever he was in it, no matter how warm and cheery the decor, and this was  _Spike._   And why that said ‘friend’ in his head, Xander had no idea, but it did.  “I’ll hire you.”

Spike stopped.  “Please.  Like Anya’d appreciate you havin’ a cabana boy.”

“Anya’s dead.  One—one of the Bringers.”  Mac-truck running over his lungs every time he had to say those words, glass shards tearing through the lining of his throat.  “It’s just me.”

“Sorry.”  Spike really did sound sorry, too, quiet in the way he should never be.  It was just as disturbing as the pose from before, which possibly explained why Xander said what he said next.

“Two weeks,” Xander offered.  When in doubt, go with what you know, and he  _really_  doubted this part of Spike had changed.  “Room, board, two hundred bucks a day, cash.”

Spike glimmered in the street lights, his leather coat reflective from wet, halo-like.  Ethereal.  Xander didn’t move, too soaked to whine about a little more, holding his breath.  No idea why this was so important, but it was, and he was going to get Spike to come back home with him, even if he had to be a john.  Wouldn’t be the first time.

Somehow, that communicated to Spike, because he nodded and turned around.

The rain washed down over everything, muting it and evening it out until there was nothing  _but_  the rain.  Noah would be called upon soon, but that was okay.  His apartment was on the tenth floor, and by the time the waters got that high, Xander was pretty certain he could’ve build a boat.

“Nice place,” Spike commented after he was invited in.  It was nice.  Spacious and open, wooden floors everywhere and a modern-looking faux-stone for the walls.  Paintings picked for their bright colors made it a friendly place, plushy furniture inviting.  Xander didn’t have an ounce of decorating sense in him, but Anya had and he’d remembered the things she liked.

“Bathroom’s down the hall, towels right outside the door.  You can borrow my clothes for a while.  Where do you get your blood?  I’ll set up an order.”  The words were quiet, like he’d offered Spike a shot at being a roommate and nothing more, which, come to think of it, didn’t sound that bad either.  People in Pittsburgh had been perfectly willing to make friends with him, but this was the first time Xander had felt the urge to do the same since he’d left Sunnydale.

“Butcher on Murray.  S’closed now, though, don’t worry about it.”

“Name?”  He could hear Spike wandering around, saw him pick things up then carefully place them back in their original positions.

“Kosher-something.”

Xander dug up the number and wrote a note reminding him to call tomorrow.  “Hey, go shower.  You’ve got to be freezing.”

Spike stood in the center of the living room, dripping all over Xander’s hardwood floors.  His hair had started drying and curled around his head, making him look like a black stem full of dandelion seeds.  He was chewing on his lower lip, a movement that looked habitual, though Xander couldn’t ever remember Spike doing that before.  He looked nervous—or like he was trying hard  _not_  to look nervous.  “So what’m I doing to earn my two hundred bucks a day, plus room an’ board?”

Xander shrugged, hoping he got the nonchalant air right.  Peeling off his jacket, he laid it over the heater rather than hang it up wet in the closet.  “Well, what do you normally do to earn two hundred a night?”

Startling Spike was something Xander used to take great pleasure in, and he felt just a little tingle of that old superiority now.  Not a lot, since he  _had_  actually grown up some, since they’d last seen each other, but enough that he wasn’t feeling awkward anymore.  He knew Spike couldn’t hurt him, couldn’t even mug him and grab his cash, not that the soul would probably let him.  Any way Spike wanted to play this was okay, even if it meant he’d waste 1400 dollars, plus whatever blood and clothes were going to cost him.  The job was profitable and it wasn’t like he spent lots of money on partying; he could afford two weeks of Spike mooching.

“Bring a lot of hookers up here, do you?”  Spike hadn’t moved, wasn’t even looking at him.  “Looks like you can afford ’em.”

“I can.  And just one.”

“Girl or boy?”

“Boy.”

“Ah.  Well, then.”

Boggling, how Spike could just  _switch_  like that, from soaked and bedraggled and more than a little pathetic, to something that was all things sexy and desirable at once.  He moved like he was floating, slithering sinuously over the floor to take Xander’s hand and lead him back to the bathroom, not once asking for directions.  Turned on the taps before stripping himself, quick almost rough, economical movements, before undressing Xander far more slowly and gently.  Not enough that Xander felt like he was some fragile figurine, but definitely with more care.

The water was hot, almost too hot against his chilled body, but Spike had grabbed the soap and it was easy to just stand there and let Spike wash the grey from his body, leaving him warm and pink and relaxed.  Leaned up against the wall when Spike pressed his shoulders, spreading his legs without thinking about it.  He’d done this often enough with Anya that the patterns were ingrained, but this time he kept his eyes open.  Wanted to see Spike opening his mouth, dragging his tongue over Xander’s cock, licking it like a cat until it was hard and ready.

Spike sucked him slow and sweet, bobbing up and down to a rhythm that was thick as molasses, and warm like tea.  Hands on his balls massaged more than teased, making Xander wonder just what Spike would be like as a masseuse and if that was covered under the two hundred.  Spike’s hair was soft and silky under his fingers, constantly beaten down by the shower and keeping them both warm.  His mouth was big, bigger than Anya’s or Jimmy’s, the guy he’d hired when he was drunk and alone and not sure if he was just screwed up or really gay, and god, could Spike suck.  Slow, steady pulling along Xander’s cock, without a single pause for unneeded breath or even more unneeded speech.  Just tongue and teeth and lips rubbing up and down.

They stayed there until the water grew cool, Spike taking him into the back of his throat and swallowing as a finale.  Vampires apparently never spit.  Quickly washing himself, Spike dried them both and moved them into the bedroom, again directing as if he’d always lived with Xander.  The lack of walls probably helped, but Xander was feeling too mellow to worry about anything.  Fell into bed when Spike pushed him into it, rolling onto his back and staring down the length of his own body.

Spike settled between his legs, head cocked and considering.  He wasn’t asking anything that Xander could understand, and Xander wasn’t sure he could answer whatever it was, anyway.  He was feeling calm and mellow, body play-doh pliable and warm for the first time in weeks.  Spike abruptly nodded, seeing  _some_ thing in Xander’s eyes, who knew how it got there, and climbed up onto his hands and knees.  A feather-light kiss, lips to lips, and then Spike was moving over him, tonguelipshandsfingers touching all the right places, finding them effortlessly, and soon Xander was groaning on the bed, writhing as Spike worked a finger inside him.

“Done this before, have you?  Figured I’d get a shock by now.  Would you like that, Harris?  Watch me screw my face up even while I pressed inside of you, both of us screaming as I fuck you good and sweet?  But it’s not gonna hurt, is it?  Know the way you played, getting yourself open and ready just for me.  All those years, Harris, you’ve been wanting this, hard and thick inside you, split open and hot inside.  Gonna give it to you, pet.  Gonna make you scream for it.”

There wasn’t even a twinge when Spike finally slid inside, the stretching burn as desired as the sparks that flew when Spike found the right angle.  Spike twisted him up, kneeling so Xander’s weight was on his shoulders, hips not even touching the bed as Spike fucked him the way he’d blown him, achingly slow.  Xander gave up the ability to speak coherently, just let his body be pushed and pulled and fucked until he was a babbling mass of need, his orgasm riding low in his gut.  Spike whispered things to him, words dripping with lust the way Xander dripped ketchup all over his fries, thick and sweet, filling his mind the way Spike’s cock filled his body.

“Wound so tight, weren’t lying when you said the once, were you?” Spike crooned, lowering his belly so Xander had something to thrust against.  “Come for me, Xander.  Come all over me.  Wanna be covered in you, hot and salty, rubbing it into me, marking me’s yours.  Yours, Xan, mark me as yours, come all over me.”

He stopped breathing when his body finally released, the pulsing between his legs pulling energy from wherever it could find.  He painted stripes down Spike’s chest and belly, white stripes that matched the white stars that still filled in his vision.  Spike stayed hard inside him, pulling out only when Xander finally caught his breath.  Then he slid, easing out and taking Xander’s hand in compensation, rubbing it over the damp of Spike’s chest until Xander caught on and worked every last bit of the viscous fluid into Spike’s skin.

Spike’s eyes were closed, lips parted for soft breaths when Xander stopped.  Exhaustion plucked with insistent fingers, but Spike was still hard, obviously not expecting to get himself off, content now that Xander was.  And Xander had a flash of things Buffy had told him, suddenly seeing all the cracks and badly-done patches that held Spike together.  It made him sad and gave him the energy to wrap a hand around Spike’s cock, jacking it hard and slow.

“Wanna see you come,” he murmured when Spike looked at him, ignoring the surprise and the tiny flash of hope, quickly replaced with lust.  “All over you.” 

Spike’s cock twitched seconds later, ropes of come mixing with the sheen Xander’s had left behind.  The control was breathtaking, but the picture was even prettier.  Spike looked  _good_ covered in come, pink mouth wide and eyes pressed close.  Without prompting, Xander rubbed that in, too, massaging it deep until Spike was making a low, rumbling noise in utter contentment.

Xander fell asleep to that noise, too sated to wonder just what the hell he was doing.


	2. Snow

Xander woke to the bed trembling.  It was a nice bed, extremely expensive and meant for those with lower-lumbar problems, covered in two-hundred count soft sheets of a nice deep blue, and it didn’t usually shake that often.  He forced his eyes open, glancing first at the clock before determining what the shaking was, because if it was already  _there_ , than there wasn’t much he could do to stop it from eating him, if whatever it was wanted to.  Knowing the time, however, was more important, just in case he had to call into work.

Five thirty.  Ack.  No wonder his thoughts weren’t making any sense.

Twisting around, Xander remembered everything the second before his eyes landed on Spike, curled up in a foetal ball and shivering.  Nightmares.  Bad ones, given the twisted up expression on Spike’s face.  The kind you woke up screaming from, except if your lips were sown together and you couldn’t scream, just pursed them down until they were white and wrinkly, the noises gathering behind the enamel barrier like wild animals trying to figure out what those metal bar-things were, and why they hurt instead of giving way when pressed.

Oh yeah.  He’d had those nightmares before.

He didn’t want to startle Spike, but watching him quaver and make noises in the back of his throat like he  _wanted_  to scream was almost painful.  So he placed his hand in Spike’s hair and began very carefully petting him.  Let his fingers create waves in the sea of short white hairs, noting the shadow of darkness at the base.  He’d never seen Spike bleach, but he  _had_ found a bleach kit in his bathroom, when he was still living at his parents, that Anya swore wasn’t hers.  He needed to do it again, Xander decided, brushing up the hair so he could see the roots.  Smoothing them back down, he made seams through curls that bounced under his fingers, waiting until Spike stopped making the whimpering sound and fell back into true sleep.

It felt odd going to work that morning, briefcase stuffed full of papers that said things like ‘Kosher Mart - get blood’, leaving someone sleeping in his bed.  He hadn’t had that in well over a year and a half, and it surprised him how easy it was to keep his movements long and slow and quiet, and remember to leave a note.  Not a long one, just reminding Spike that he was bought and paid for, so he might as well enjoy the digital cable and Xander would be back around six.

The rain still came down.  People at work were actively desiring snow, today, because at least that was white and not as drenching as rain.  Plus, snow-days did occasionally occur even for the working-stiff, especially if the city had to shut down like it did last year.  Xander had no idea it was so expensive to keep a few dozen plows up and running.

He did remember to call the butcher, arranging for a steady supply of blood to be delivered to his apartment every few days.  He was about to call Willow, to ask the best places to buy a supply of human blood, because Spike was thin and not as strong as he should have been, and he was hopefully in the days when he could order pig’s blood by phone from a butcher, he wouldn’t have to go into any really creepy stores without her.  But the phone started ringing and he got distracted, the invisible specter of those dark, incense laden stores with women dressed in gypsy clothing of purple and blue, lounging behind the counter keeping Xander from calling her when he did have the time.  Plus, he wasn’t really sure he wanted Willow to know—yet, anyway.

Then several beams fell down at one of the sites and almost crushed someone, and there wasn’t time to think about things like blood or checking up on Spike, just making sure the worker were okay and then assessing the damage.  The worker, singular,  _was_  okay, thanks to good reflexes.  The wall, however, was not.

“You try working when the rain’s coming down so hard you can’t see in front of your face,” he snarled into his cell-phone, punching his number in the elevator with a sharp stab, hard enough to want to feel the plastic crack.  “As foreman, it’s your  _job_  to be out there, making sure work conditions are—let’s guess—workable!  Wanna explain to me how that nice bar we found you at was ‘being out there’?  Cause I’m really interested in hearing you stumble around and look for a reason why I shouldn’t fire you!”  The former-foreman spluttered and stammered and eventually Xander just hung up.  “Idiot.”

“Hard day?”

Hell, he hadn’t even realized there was someone in the elevator with him.  Managing an apologetic smile, Xander glanced over to see a lean, sculptured body covered in a tailored suit that fit like second skin, and an expression that was as Spike-like as Xander had ever seen.  Kinney, Brian, who lived two floors down from him.  The one who brought home a different boy every night, when he wasn’t with the baby-faced blond, and really  _was_  as annoyingly arrogant as Spike.  Also the reason Xander had finally called the number burning through the back of his wallet, though he’d never tell anyone that.  “Yeah, sorry.  Accident on the site.”

“Strip or Southside?”

Xander blinked at the rapid-fire question, a sinking suspicion telling him that this was just the perfect cap to a perfect day.  “SouthSide.  Let me guess, Vangaurd won the advertising rights to the complex.”

“And I’m heading the project.”

Fuck.  Ing.  Perfect.  “Well, we’re going to be just the best of buds, aren’t we?” Xander schmoozed, fake smile firmly in place.  He and Kinney got on about as well as pair of feral cats, after Xander finally figured out  _what_  Kinney was doing with the eyes and the direct stare.  Brian had been almost flabbergasted when his famed sexual magnetism didn’t ensnare Xander, and Xander had almost clocked him one, when Kinney started getting agitated—got so close he could feel the heat of the other man’s body against his knuckles.  The encounter left both of them flustered and suspicious of the other, so of  _course_  he was going to be the head of the project Xander was liaison to.  Fuck.  “Oh, and here’s your floor.  Have a nice night!”

Repeatedly pressing the ‘close’ button, Xander pointedly turned his head away so if Brian wanted to continue the conversation, he’d be facing the patch over Xander’s left eye.  Made talking  _really_  rude, hopefully enough that even Brian fucking Kinney would take a hint.

Whether he did decide to obey some codes of conduct or he hadn’t even bothered thinking up a rejoinder, Xander didn’t know since the elevator doors smoothly slid close and quietly whooshed up the remaining two floors.  Tense and aching and resentful of life being, well,  _life_ , Xander yanked open the door and slammed it behind him.

Which, of course, startled Spike into jumping straight up into the air, like a cat, back arched and fur bristling.

They stared at each other, frozen in surprise since Xander had forgotten—again—that he didn’t live alone anymore, and Spike had obviously fallen asleep on the sofa, waiting for him.  Spike recovered first, snorting at himself and then getting to his feet.  “Thought you might be late,” he offered in a bored tone.  “Janice called around seven, said she’d get you tomorrow at work, don’t call her back.  Ordered Chinese.  Still like that mooshoo stuff, right?”

His briefcase was set by his desk, umbrella placed in the stand to drip dry, his jacket hung up on the peg outside the closet, all without Xander moving anything but his arms.  When Xander continued not to move, though, Spike shrugged and pulled out two beers from the fridge and popped them.  Held it out, waving it enticingly.

“You ordered me food?”  The offer of beer unstuck his feet and got him over to the kitchen, where Spike pushed him down into a chair, beer in hand.  “You remembered I like mooshoo?”

“Watched you eat the stuff for nearly three weeks straight, Harris.  Not a sight a man forgets, that.”

Spike-snark, right on schedule.  Except Spike’s hands were working into Xander’s shoulders, finding that one achy spot instantly and pressing down until Xander gasped and twitched and felt something twinge in his back, but in the good way.  Spike-snark just wasn’t the same when Spike was busy rubbing knots out of your neck and shoulders.  He wasn’t sure what it was, but it was a hell of a lot better than an empty apartment and maybe a bowl of cereal, and he could afford the cash.  Mm, nice Spike.  Keeping Spike.

“Wait a minute—Janice called?”  Janice, his secretary?  The one who knew better than to call him at home, unless there was a real emergency?

“Relax, I’m your new roommate.”  Spike’s voice mixed with the constant hiss of rain, somehow making it sound soothing and welcoming.

“I don’t care if you told her I want to fuck you into next  _week_ , Spike, what’d she call about!”

“Told you,” Spike answered, digging his fingers in so Xander couldn’t move without hurting both of them.  “She said she’d get you tomorrow, it could wait till then.  Didn’t tell me the details.”  Certain that Xander wasn’t going anywhere, Spike began rubbing again.  “Nice girl, Janice.  Seems glad you’re living with someone.”

If Janice knew he had a roommate, the entire company would know by tomorrow, ten am, including the college kids that temped as runners that no one liked or talked to because they were fresh-faced and stupid.  She was a great secretary, but she gossiped more than Cordelia ever had, babbling freely to one and all.  She was kind-hearted, though, and was never purposefully malicious so people simply learned to itemize which things were  _not_  for public consumption.  “She would be.  She wanted to  _be_  that someone.”

“Thought she was sweet on you.”  Spike was as good at massage as Xander had guessed, fingers warming from Xander’s body heat and easily finding the worst of the aches.  “Head down,” Spike directed once, working down past shoulder blades to tickle along his kidneys.  “Can do more later.  Get some massage oil, maybe, stretch you out flat and really get you unkinked.”

“You don’t have to do this.”  His voice was slurred and deep, eyes drooping as he fought to stay awake.  He wasn’t really that tired, actually, but with Spike drawing out the pain it was harder to keep reminding himself of that.  “S’not what I’m paying you for.”

“Hush, now.  Lemme go check on the food.”  That wasn’t an answer at all, but Xander was too relaxed to argue, slumping against the table while Spike made a quick call and then opened the door.  “Wallets on the table,” he called, since he didn’t think Spike had money, unless he ordered from Xander’s usual restaurant, where he already had a tab.

Egg rolls, hot and sour soup, and mooshoo pork were a great way to end a stressful day.  For some reason, Chinese food had become his comfort food and it made him feel warm and fuzzy like an old pair of slippers might have, if he happened to own slippers at all.  He ate everything Spike put in front of him, noting that Spike ate as well, and drank from a ruby-red liquid that stained the glass almost brown every time Spike sipped.

“Blood came.”

“Yeah.  Thanks.” 

Spike was  _thanking_  him?  That got his eyes to open fully and he studied Spike as they finished.  Spike wouldn’t let him clean up, either, not that ‘cleaning’ was hard when the half-empty containers went into the fridge and the plates and silverware went into the dishwasher, but he wouldn’t let Xander do it, and that was probably significant.  Xander’s fumbling fingers, however, were grateful.  Crate and Barrel already got enough of his money.

Dinner over, they watched tv for a while, Spike still acting like a pod-creature and almost cuddling.  At first, though, he just stared out the window, watching the rain bead and slide to form rivers and oceans on the pane, hands flat on the glass until they were really, really cold.  Which made them really, really nice when the stroked and skidding over Xander’s shoulders.  It felt comfortable sitting like that, twisted up and touching, they way the apartment hadn’t yet, not even after the six months he’d lived there.

“I’m not paying you for anything except sex,” Xander said eventually.  Some local newscaster was clinically listing the days fatalities and injuries, but he was paying more attention to the head leaning into his neck, hair tickling him.  “Wait, that didn’t come out right.  I mean, you don’t have to do this, ordering food and taking my messages.  You don’t have to be. . .nice, I guess.  That’s not why I did it.”

“Did it cause you’re too soft-hearted for your own good,” Spike replied.  “S’what being a white-hat means.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Yeah, it is.  C’mon, time for bed.”

Xander didn’t question where the lube came from, since they’d finished the lone tube he had the night before, but wasn’t complaining when Spike begged to be fucked into next week, like Xander promised.  It was hard to pass up an offer like that, and, well, it  _was_  exactly what Xander needed, the chance to pound into something and reduce the weight of his brain for a few seconds.  Spike arched and murmured underneath him, legs over Xander’s shoulders, cock hard without either of them ever touching it, like Spike wanted to prove that just Xander inside him was enough.  Like what he’d done last night was because that’s what Xander needed then, and now Xander needed to screw something until they both really did scream, bodies tight and tense, sweat coating over skin, and the damnable rain still in the background, acting like a metronome.

Spike came when he did, kept Xander inside his body and got him hard again with a few well-timed movements and a whole lot of words.  They fucked again, rougher, harder, and this time Xander pulled out and painted over Spike again, demanding the vampire rub three loads of cum into his skin.  It wasn’t a kink he’d ever had before, but after last night it felt appropriate and only after Spike was shiny and warm did Xander collapse onto his side and let his eyes drift shut, body completely free of stress and tension because Spike had drawn every bit of it out of him, hands and ass.

It went like that for almost three weeks, and the rain really had turned to snow, albeit briefly.  A coating of white hung frozen on the trees and building ledges, but not to the ground.  The ice-skating rink was set up in the plaza, and Xander went down on his lunch break to stare at what used to be a fountain, now a circle of frozen stuff, kept that way without ice-machines or anything but what nature used.  Mothers laughed at their children, then herded them back to school or wherever they were due, promising pop and hat chocolate.  Which turned out to be soda and  _hot_  chocolate, to those with a So-Cal upbringing. 

The snow on the actual sidewalks and roads had melted almost instantly, turning back into the same unrelieved grey, before the sun broke out for almost an entire week.  It was weak sunlight, though, thin and cold and not very bright.  Xander was tempted to call it ‘grey’, except when it reflected off of what he now knew was the PPG Place, a towering, castle-like complex that was made of mirrors and recognizable from even the smallest glimpse.  When it hit that, the light was blinding, shattering into slivers even from the corner of his eye.  The lowering quality of the clouds had changed, losing their pregnant fullness and fading back into a kind of background reminder.  Like it  _could_  start raining or snowing any minute, but you couldn’t predict when because that would make the weather man’s job too easy, and taking an umbrella was as prosaically habitual as taking his briefcase, regardless of what that worthy had said.  The whole city felt a whiter shade of grey, poised on the edge of something deep and nasty, the air biting in a way Xander had never felt before.  The natives told him it was what ‘winter’ smelled like, and Xander just identified it ‘sharp and very, very cold’.  Spike said it smelled like mulled cider whenever he went outside, which they did every once in a while.  Xander took care of the random gay-basher, and they both did for any random vamps or demons.

It was some time in the middle of the forth week that Xander realized that it was Thanksgiving, or almost, and he didn’t have any plans, having refused Willow’s repeated entreaties to bring him and his ‘roommate’ Spike down for a weekend at Slayer Central.  Then he realized that Spike had been there for two extra weeks without comment, and that Xander hadn’t paid a single cent directly to Spike.  Oh, he’d  _paid_ —their meals, the occasional movie out, all the rentals Spike wanted and some Xander did, new clothes when Spike needed them, plus a  _lot_ of sex-toys for the two of them, since Spike was creative and Xander liked sex any and every way he could get it.  But those were things he’d figured he’d pay anyway, on top of the nearly six thousand dollars he now owed.

But Spike never brought up, and Xander felt tacky just handing him a wad of cash.  Spike was different, now, anyway.  The brash edge that had been such a defining part of Spike’s personality was muted, brushed over with sandpaper until all the rough parts had been smoothed.  He still  _sounded_  like Spike, especially when they were watching movies and they both got their heckle on, but he didn’t always act like Spike.  Xander wasn’t sure what Spike  _was_  acting like, and he definitely wasn’t sure if he was supposed to like it as much as he did.

"Janice called," Spike said the minute Xander walked through the door.  "Brian called he again.  You're gonna have to meet with him sometime, pet."

Brian Kinney had remained the thorn deeply embedded in Xander's side.  If he wasn't so good, Xander would be tempted to tell his bosses to find someone else, but he  _was_  so Xander dealt.  The three of them had bumped into each other one night, and calculations had been summed in Brian’s eyes.  Xander had no idea what the totals were, but Spike disliked him as much as Xander did, and Brian  _knew_  that—so he'd started going out of his way to make the professional relationship between them strained.  Odd, since one of the few things he knew about the guy was that he was  _extra_  careful to keep his work‑relationships totally professional.  Jeez, just because  _one_  guy didn't sleep with him—okay, two, since Spike had warned him that he was bought and paid for, straying only when he was  _told_  to—didn't mean that he was losing  his ‘touch’ or whatever.

“I’ll meet with him, I will!  Just. . . later.  Okay?”

“Fine by me.  The shouting match with the wall scares the plants, but then I get fucked so hard I can’t move right for hours.”  Spike was dressed in jeans and a black sweater—since Xander hadn’t been picky about what Spike bought, so long as it was warm and presentable in case someone stopped by—lounging on the sofa.  Warm was always a key as winter loomed closer and closer and Xander understood what cold really meant.  “Don’t mind  _that_  part of it at all, now, do I.”

“Slut,” Xander tossed without rancor.  “It’s Thanksgiving tomorrow.”

“S’why Janice called.  She wants us to come over.  Says since neither of us cook, we’ll be bloody lost without a woman to help us.”

Spike had integrated into his life so seamlessly that Xander sometimes blinked, and had to think about a time when Spike wasn’t waiting for him at home, full of gossip or some new sex-trick he wanted Xander to try, or maybe just a meal and a massage that left Xander’s body sodden and his balls very, very empty.  Everyone knew he was living with Xander, too, from his coworkers to his friends, although only Dawn knew they were screwing.  Spike couldn’t keep a secret from her, but Xander knew she’d think it was perfect, and hadn’t cared when Spike gave him guilty-face.  He often came home to find her lecturing him over phone or the beeping computer on how to treat Xander.

“Does she  _know_  that you cook?  Probably better than she does?”

Spike followed him into the kitchen, fixing Xander a drink without being told that he wanted whiskey, today, instead of beer, because he didn’t have work the next day and felt like splurging.  Spike was  _good_  at knowing things like that, frighteningly good, and it had been on Xander’s mind more and more lately.  “You wanna tell her that, be my guest.  Don’t blame me when she castrates you.”

“But I thought you liked my balls,” Xander pouted, make a  _moue_  when Spike’s glare when from annoyed to sardonic.  Living with Spike wasn’t always easy; they fought, of course, but it was like all the big things had been ironed out of the years, and most of what they did was tease each other.  “Anyway, you wanna go?  Should be good food, good fun.  We could tell everyone that you’re my paid live-in lover.”

There was no excuse for saying that, of course, but it was out there now, and Spike was tilting his head like he wasn’t sure which way Xander wanted him to jump.  “Live-in lover, yeah?  Better than whore.”

“You’re not a whore.”  The words popped out without thinking, because Xander’s mouth had a mind of it’s own, getting him in and out of trouble with a speed that left Xander breathless and sweaty.  “If you wanted to leave, I wouldn’t make you stay.”

Spike bit his lip, still studying Xander, so still that every twitch of his eyes was like a round-house swing.  The lip-biting was a new habit that Xander hated, but wasn’t sure how to tell Spike to stop doing it.  Or if that would pass the so far never-passed line that would send Spike packing.  “Don’t try to be clever, Harris.  Doesn’t suite you.”

He only called Xander ‘Harris’ when Spike was trying to remember that a few years ago, he’d been the Big Bad and had clobbered Xander over the head with a microscope rather than let one measly human get in his way.  Xander traced over the cracks in the table, remembering like he did every time that he wanted to sand them down and revarnish, trying to find some way of not doing this.  Because he  _could_  go on without knowing.  He’d done it before, and okay, it had resulted in leaving someone at the alter, but this wasn’t as significant.  Wasn’t it?

“Fine,” he said with a sigh.  The whiskey burned into his gut, and for a second, he could pretend that it was courage.  “I won’t be clever.  Why are you still here, Spike?  I haven’t paid you, you haven’t asked for it, and I’m not really sure what’s going on.  I don’t  _want_  you to go.  I like this, I like having you here.  But. . .”

He never really noticed how quiet the apartment was, after Spike came.  TV, radio, idle chit-cat, it had filled the spaces the way Xander’s breathing never could.  And he didn’t want to go back to that rattling emptiness, and he didn’t want to lose Spike, who was just staring at him, eyes turning the darkest blue Xander had ever seen.

Spike eased off the counter, doing the slinky-hip walk for two steps until he could straddle Xander’s legs and sit in his lap.  Big, white-haired kitty kissing his mouth and promising things with his tongue that Xander hadn’t quite believed possible, even when he was lying in bed, Spike a heavy weight on his chest and random thoughts like ‘forever’ sneaking through his mind.  He was built for monogamy, no matter how often his balls professed their love of casual-sex. 

They kissed for a long time, not talking, just letting lips and teeth and taste fix all the things between them.  Eventually, Spike got to his feet, mouths still fused, stripping them both from the waist down so Spike could climb right back in, taking Xander deeply inside him.  They fucked gently, hardly moving, with the sounds of wet smacking and soft sucking the only accompaniment they needed.

“You take care of me,” Spike said eventually, foreheads pressed together, breath winding over their faces to cool the sweat.  “Like that.”

“And the taking care of me?”

“Need that.”

There was more, of course, and Spike told him.  All the details of the sordid love affair with Buffy, the rape, the return, and the final understanding of who, exactly, Spike was.  “Stuck the snow up in Montana, turnin’ into a vampcicle, not three weeks after Buffy said go, and I finally got it, love.  Over a hundred years and I finally got what I was.  I need it, Xan, need someone who wants me there, wants me to take care of them.  Need that.  S’not the soul, or the chip talkin’, either.  Just me, William the Poncy and Bloody.”

“I want you,” Xander said fiercely, bucking his hips up into the tightness that hadn’t stopped moving, no matter what Spike spoke about.  “I want  _you.”_  And maybe if the words weren’t quite what either of them wanted to say, that was okay too.  Because Spike was arching his back, gasping with eyes wide and brilliant, thrusting down so hard that Xander was sure he was going to have bruises and craved every one.  Because this wasn’t about money, and it wasn’t even about need, despite what Spike had been babbling.  If Spike needed to act like someone’s slave, Xander read enough alternative mags to know that there were plenty of people who wanted that.  But Xander didn’t want  _that_.  He wanted  _Spike._

And that’s what Spike wanted, too.  Third time really was a charm.

They fell onto the floor, the chair sliding right out from under his ass, Spike instinctively twisting so that he landed first.  They kept fucking the entire time, murmuring ‘want’ and ‘need’, neither of them brave enough to say the word that was stuck between their bodies, throbbing in time with Xander’s heart.  Spike’s voice was as white and cold as the wintery air outside the apartment, sharp against Xander’s face and promising things the words he said never came close to.  Xander bit his lips to shut him up, hard enough that he drew blood.  He wanted them to come at the same time, wanted to feel Spike clench so damned tightly around him that he was afraid his cock was going to get ripped right off.  Wanted Spike to know that this wasn’t about sex, or money, or need.  Wanting Spike to know that it was about  _want._

It snowed that night, as heavy as it did on  _It’s a Wonderful Life_ , flakes cotton-ball thick and thumb-nail big _._   They woke to a world that was pristine and clear, all the grey imperfections muffled for the few short hours before the rest of the world woke up and the plows got going.  The weatherman said a warm front was moving in and it wasn’t going to last, but while Spike lay warm under the covers, Xander ran outside and made the snowman he’d been dying to make.  It was beautiful everywhere he looked.  Clean.  New.

When they went to Thanksgiving dinner the next night, Xander introduced Spike as his boyfriend.  Janice beamed at them, and when they went back to work the next week she didn’t tell a soul.


	3. Sun

“So you really like being in Pittsburgh?”  Wistful little catch, there, like a kitten staring longingly at a tangle of yarn just out of reach.

“Yes, Willow, I really like being in Pittsburgh.  It’s a nice town.”

“I can hear you lying, you know,” Willow responded, wistfulness disappearing into a voice warm with that naughty, spicy-apple teasing only she could get away with.  Well, sometimes Spike, though his teasing unusually involved muscles tensed to aching and a need Xander never wanted to reach the end of.

“Are you  _sure_  I can’t persuade you to come to L.A. to visit?  Giles is making blood pudding, so Spike would be right at home, and Buffy’s bringing her boyfriend, and she really wants to see Spike—no dustage imminent, you know she wants to talk to him in person—and Dawn keeps telling us you have this really big secret.”

The last was most important, of course, though tossed out as if it were an afterthought she cared nothing about.  Xander glanced to his left, where Spike lounged in seeming unconcern on the hardwood floor, sunlight puddled inches from the chenille wrapped around him, sleek and sated and idly flipping through a magazine.

“It’s warm,” Willow lured, tone so wicked Xander could picture her, sixteen and radiant, crinkling her nose under wide, wide eyes, the way she always did when it was him she was luring.  “I know how much you miss being in the sun, Xander. . .”

“Actually, it’s sunny,” weak, thin, and colder than the ice on the ground, but still sun, “here right now.”

The sun had broken through almost suddenly.  Well, not  _actually_  suddenly, as Pittsburgh shook the magic eightball of meteorology and waited to see what floated up to the top first. _Reply hazy, try again._   First there were storms that weren’t quite blizzards—to everyone but Xander, who shook and shivered and tried hard not to cry uncle—blustery winds turning trees into cat’o’nines, random pedestrians willing victims to the lash.  The wind howled at all hours, screaming around corners and creating nightmares for both of them that prompted trips to the Sharper Edge for a white noise machine.  Water came down from the sky, cold and wet, too frozen to be called ‘rain’, but not the picturesque flakes of ‘snow’, either.  There was slush  _everywhere_ , staining boots and pants, splattering up lapels.  The Thanksgiving snowfall had lasted all of two days before the damnable grey came back with a gummier quality that nothing, not even scrubbing in the tub with hot water and scented oils, could really get rid of.

After those first small storms broke and the winds died down, clouds fled leaving sun in their wake.  Xander knew what winter sun was, had seen it twenty two times already, but he’d never seen sun like this.  The rays were brilliant, blinding, and Xander spent a fortune on covers for the windows, no matter how many times Spike insisted he was perfectly safe inside the apartment.  The air was sharp and cold, the smell of frost biting his nose from the inside out, staining his cheeks bright pink.  The sky was a clear baby blue, the same shade as Spike’s eyes when Xander came home early, just to spend time with his vampire. . . and if Spike ever knew Xander had even  _thought_  that, he’d be in trouble.

“But you’re doing okay?  Really okay?”  The temptress vanished as if she’d never been, a hint of true worry layered underneath affection as warm and thick as the blankets Xander had bought to wrap his chilled lover up like a mummy, leaving only his mouth free for kisses.

“I’m okay, Willow.  Really really okay.”

“Are you guys still patrolling?  You and Spike.”

Pointed, pointed little stubborn girl.  Xander smiled as Spike’s head rose, tiny smile playing on pale cheeks Xander wished he could rouge.  _Come here_  Spike mouthed, hot chocolate on icy cold vanilla ice cream and Xander was helpless to resist.  They curled up together on top of the blankets, basking in reflected light, contented as only two men with nothing to do could be.  “Sometimes,” he answered Willow.  “If there’s something big going down, or Spike needs to exercise.”

It wasn’t worth trying to patrol while slipping through the wet that was slicker than ice, especially when staying home meant warmth and arguing in front of a sporting event.  Football, college and pro, hockey, the first signs of basketball, only college, plus whatever international soccer game Spike wanted to watch.  They wore jerseys that cost too much and said things like ‘One For The Thumb’ or ‘Stay Out Of The Ward’.  Xander discovered that he really did like football, American and British versions, and they spent entire evenings debating the pros and cons of each, usually ending with the winner licking the loser all over until he begged for mercy.

“Xander,” amused, “he’s not a pet you can take on walks.”

Spike never said anything.  His position was assured and that was all that mattered to him—at least, that was what he claimed whenever Xander pressed him, begging and cajoling and often fucking him into a moments of truthfulness.  Spike was at his most malleable after sex, a fact Xander exploited ruthlessly when Christmas lists had to be written or certain pertinent questions answered.  Xander still wondered, though, what it’d be like to tell his friends.  Their reactions, and his, and where the little roulette wheel of trust would stop.

He changed the subject after that, to life in L.A. and the new school.  “Do they call you Head Mistress?” he joked, the conversation turning into the rapid-fire exchange they could have when they weren’t being cat-wary of each other.  They didn’t talk as much as he wished, though that was more his fault than that of her busy schedule.  Dawn was easier to talk to, lately, when it came to idle gossip.

It bothered him, sometimes.  When he let himself think about it, free of Spike-distractions.

“All right, all right,” she laughed eventually, allowing him to go.  “Say hi to Spike for me.”  Behind him, Spike responded by licking Xander’s ear, creating shivery-good feelings he wasn’t meant to have while talking on the phone with Willow.  “Love you, Xander.”

“Love you, too.”

It was just one conversation.  There were others, with lots of people, some of whom Xander actually wanted to talk to.  Some  _Spike_  wanted to talk to, or had to, which always filled Xander with wonder because his vampire could switch from cultured to crude in a syllable, if he needed to.  Schizophrenia was acceptable after a hundred years of watching the world and a demon to skew your vision.

They played in the snow as long as it lasted, attracting wide-eyed children and wary parents, confused by the two grown men who threw snow balls without the intent to hurt and were always willing to help a child sled down the hill.  The little hump right by the sidewalk  in the small park they visited the most often was the perfect place to horse around under cloudless night skies, little girls giggling with them, as little boys anxiously waited their turn to slide down in the wickedly fast sled Xander built one indoor-only weekend.  Parents never truly trusted the one with hair almost as white as the snow, but when the inevitable squalls of bumps or bruises went up, it was Spike who was there first, helping the child back up to toddle over to its caretaker, tears already dried to sniffles.  While the child was cosseted by a, usually, amusedly worried parent, Xander made sure to promise Spike elaborate, definitely non-PG-13 rewards.

The snow only really lasted a few weeks, despite the occasional storm that never was a storm, dumping a dusting of white on top of the city, nothing more.  By mid-December, before Willow’s first actual phone call begging them to visit for New Years instead of just her daily emails, there wasn’t even a hint of it lingering on the ground, and his coworkers warned him that this was the reprieve before Old Man Winter shook his fist for true—but that always prompted arguments, so Xander was never sure who to believe.

“Don’t you listen to them,” Janice would tell him, scanning a sheaf of documents that Xander would sign unread because Janice had already read them.  “Haven’t had a decent storm here in nearly fifteen years.”

“Fifteen years ago you were just a baby,” Harry would always respond, head poking out from behind his partition, coke-bottle thick glasses hiding twinkling, gentle eyes.  “Just outta elementary school, you were.”

“I was in Allderdice, and you know it.  That’s when the ice-storm took out the generator and we went home for a week.”

“And I bet you were thrilled to have the ground so slippy, the four blocks you had to walk to school and back.”

It was an old argument since the two of them had lived in the same neighborhood for most of their lives, and regularly battled over the best routes and haunts.  Xander always enjoyed listening, but it didn’t do much to clarify what to expect from winter in Pittsburgh, so he stocked up on salt and kitty litter, spare heaters just in case, and a few tons of non-perishable foods.  Spike never laughed in his face, but sometimes Xander saw him contemplating the emergency winter stash stacked near the bedroom and snickering.

They started going out more.  Not patrolling, although Spike was starting to be as good as Xander at spotting girls who were no longer just potentials.  No, they went to more normal places.  Spike took him to bars, easing them away from the working man bars to slightly hipper ones where there were people under forty and the women weren’t almost indistinguishable from the men.  They went to clubs, too, quiet ones at first, with music that didn’t deafen them, and gradually Xander realized that he was being slowly worked up to going to Babylon.

“Spike, if you wanted to go there, why didn’t you just say so?”  They were going somewhere else tonight, down in the Strip to a club that wasn’t precisely gay-friendly but wasn’t anti-fag.  That was the  _only_  reason he’d let Spike pick out his clothes: tight back pants and a button down blue shirt that he could almost wear to work, if you ignored the slightly see-through fabric and the threads of something shimmery sewn in.  “You know I don’t care where we go.”

“Say that enough and you might even convince yourself, yeah?”  Spike didn’t mock as well as he used to, especially when he was sidling up to Xander with a smile that was two parts shy and three parts crafty.  His body molded to Xander’s so easily now, like he’d always known where to dip and bend.  “Don’t worry, pet.  Not gonna overwhelm you all at once.”

“I mean it,” Xander said, head already tilting because Spike was there, within kissing distance, lips pink and pouting.  “If you want to go to Babylon, we can.”

“Not yet,” Spike answered, letting himself be kissed.  He never tasted like smoke, because Xander hated that, only Spike and maybe a hint of dark, sticky-sweet whiskey because Xander always needed a little to get him going.  “Not yet.”

They had fun that night, drinking and dancing into the wee hours.  Girls hit on them both; Spike charming in his rejection, Xander fumbling and bumbling until Spike had to do his rejecting for him, somehow managing  _not_  to light both of them up in pink and purple neon for all to see their gayness.  It was a skill Xander envied, particularly when Spike got the girls to laugh as they left, confidence intact as they swished away, asses bouncing under short skirts.  Almost humiliating how easy Spike did it, snake-charmer quick and hot enough that it made Xander want to suck him down right then and there.  And then Spike turned a look on him, sultry and knowing, and Xander got that it wasn’t about those girls, not even a bit.  It was about him, Xander, always and completely.  

The sky was just starting to turn hazy and pink ’round the edges when they arrived home, Xander barely getting the door shut before ripping off Spike’s pants.  “Only got the pair,” Spike pouted, stripping off the shirt unasked.

“Buy you more,” Xander promised, shock of knees hitting hard wood echoing up his legs, hands grasping at Spike’s thighs to position him the way Xander wanted.

“You—oh, hell, yeah.  Buy me everything,” Spike babbled.

Xander laughed around the cock in his mouth and Spike cried out sharply before slipping into the stunned silence of a creature who was having the head of his cock scraped with slick-wet teeth, right on the spot that made him shiver and moan like a girl who happened to be a baritone.

They sixty-nined three feet from the door, neither of them caring that there was both couch and bed not that far away.

When they finally uncurled, naked and glistening and panting, because Spike always panted when he was with Xander, they stared at the ceiling for a while.  Cold from the floor seeped into their bones, but neither of them moved.

“Out with it.”

“Nothing to be out with.”

Spike curled around him in what was becoming a habitual position for them, head on Xander’s heart, and blew air over the other nipple.  “Can hear the cog-wheels turning, love.  Not still on about me taking you to Babylon right away, are you?”

“No,” he lied, even though he was.  Going to Babylon was the ultimate removal of a crusted-on band-aid, the one place he’d always wanted to go but never had, held back by a complicated mix of shyness and shame, fear and a holier-than-thou attitude Spike regularly fucked out of him.  “Although we  _can_ , you know.  I’m not fond of slow torture.  Pretty much taking a stance on slow torture.  I’d rather you just ripped it off.”

Spike’s head came up, white’s glowing around iris’ still nearly black.  “What the hell’re you talking about?”

“Are you missing something?”

The question sucked whatever warmth there had been from the room, skin chilled to goosebumps in an instant.  Or maybe that was Spike rolling onto his haunches to look down at Xander, head tilted, eyes dark with a blankness Xander didn’t like.  It screamed alien, vampire next to him, still chipped but deadlier because the chip only stopped fingers hooked to claws and sharpened teeth from hurting his heart, and Spike didn’t need those.  “What should I be missing?” Spike asked carefully.

“Something.  I don’t know.”  Sitting up, Xander raised his legs to balance arms on curved, knobby knees, uncomfortable in his nakedness for the first time since Spike came into his life.  “Something you want that I’m not giving you.  Something you need for me to do, or need for  _you_  to do.”

This wasn’t the conversation you wanted to have at pushing two am with the world held frozen and aching outside, the air thick with anticipation.  Or maybe it was the perfect time, when everything hung on the final moment, pressure building behind you, clouds of things you couldn’t identify, waiting to push you in ways you couldn’t anticipate.  Xander wished he’d never opened his mouth.

“Think I need something, do you?”

Spike wasn’t touching him.  The realization hit him sledge-hammer hard.  Spike was  _always_  touching him, unless Xander specifically didn’t want it, which wasn’t as often as he would have thought, looking back on weeks that bled into months.  Hands and thighs, bits of skin both cool and warm that always seemed to find each other no matter what the circumstances.  And now Spike was holding himself back and away, arms crossed in a barrier Xander didn’t know how to penetrate.  Didn’t know if he should even try.

“I don’t know,” Xander said softly, shivering.  “But you have to want things, Spike.  And you never tell me.”  He just hinted, little mentions that were more glaring for their lack of follow-through, and it’d hit Xander like a jet.  The clubs, the changes, Spike wasn’t doing this just because it’d be fun.  He  _wanted_  something.  Didn’t he?

He squeaked when Spike surged forward, mouth latching onto his with a fervor Xander couldn’t understand but welcomed nonetheless.  “Don’t need to tell you,” Spike said, then kissed him again, and again, until Xander was in the bedroom, on his back with his legs over Spike’s shoulders as a cock was eased in and out of him, slow enough to be lava, eating at Xander’s thoughts until there was nothing but molten flame inside him and Spike.  Spike Spike Spike.

“Love you,” Spike breathed when he finally came, falling onto a single hand while his other was busy working Xander into a stuttering orgasm that made him see sparks.  “I love you, Xander.”

“Love you, Spike,” Xander sighed before sleep tied him with dark ribbons.  And again in the morning, and every time they spoke, even when Xander was at work, creating yet another office pool as to who Xander’s new love was and when they would get to meet him or her.  He glared dark accusations at Janice when he heard that there was a second pool as to the gender of said love, but she simply reminded him that not  _every_  place was behind the times.

And placed her bet on a blonde with blue eyes.

Xander didn’t stop saying ‘I love you’.

It wasn’t the end of it, though.  There was something Spike wanted, though he didn’t know how to say it any more than Xander knew how to ask for it.  The direct approach had failed, created a tiny stream of uncertainty they constantly hopped back and forth for the next few days, when things could go from strained to comfortable and back again in a half an hour—but it faded to a trickle by Christmas.  The holiday was as commercialized in Pittsburgh as anywhere Xander had ever been, but for the first time in Xander’s life, the pressures he had on him were normal.  There were no monsters around, except the demon they’d killed the night before, a hairy, dog-like thing that seemed to crave kids laden with gingerbread, and no apocalypse on the horizon.  The only issues Xander had was how to let Willow down gently, a slight headache at work, and a lover that seemed angrier at himself than at Xander.

It was a good Christmas.  They went to Janice’s again, this time Spike helping her to prepare most of the meal.  People from work and Janice’s friends wandered in and out of her cozy apartment, her parents immediately latching on to Xander as the perfect guy to teach Janice how to finally land a husband.  She flushed and stammered, Spike smirked, while Xander smiled in fond amusement since never once did her parents imply that  _he_  should be that husband.

He found out later Janice had told them he was taken.  Right around the time she made certain he and Spike were alone in a room together, mistletoe  _handed_  to Spike since, “Xander can’t be trusted to make these decisions on his own.”

The kisses were sweet, Spike’s mouth sticky and sharp from the candy cane he’d been sucking.  “Love you,” Xander murmured, fingers crushing berries as they entwined with Spike’s.  “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for, love.”

Xander shook his head, single eye implacable as he looked down to meet Spike’s gaze.  “There’s something.  And whatever it is, I’m sorry.”

Blue eyes softened and whatever was between them vanished into mist as Spike kissed his mouth, then his good eye before nipping slightly at his nose.  “Git.”

It was well past midnight by the time they went home to the huge tree Xander had purchased, green branches dotted with splashes of color and the translucent glass figurines that Spike had bought somehow escaped true Christmas tackiness.  Multi-hued presents spilled out of the cradle to scatter along the floor.  He hadn’t bothered counting, but the pile for him and Spike from friends and co-workers was an amazing haul.  His inner five year old was bouncing with unrestrained glee, mentally demanding that he open them now now now.  The adult just looked on in wonder, surreptitiously taking a few digital photos as the physical proof that despite everything he’d been through, despite all the troubles and worries and fears and heartaches—he was loved.  He’d survived, grown up, and he had a family.  Something he’d always dreamed of having, never believing he would.

And he had a pile of silver-wrapped packages for the lover he’d never even imagined would be in his life.

  


Accepting his mug of alcohol-laced hot chocolate, Xander enveloped Spike and just held him, listening to the sound of tinny music coming from revelers still outside despite the late hour and the odd calm in the air that promised a storm to come.  He breathed in the scent of pine and musk and a hint of copper from Spike’s supper and waited.  He could stay like this all night, if Spike wanted, because as much as he couldn’t wait to open his presents, he’d already received the most important one.  Saying that was impossible, but staying like this, bodies pressed together like a matched set, softened by warmth and wreathed in golden light, Xander could imagine Spike knew.

“You asked me something, a while back,” Spike said eventually.  His voice was low and breathy, floating through the air to mix with the faint strains of Christmas carols.  “Got an answer for you.”

He didn’t tense, though his mind immediately fell into panic.  His mind forgot that he wasn’t sixteen anymore, while his body and heart remembered that nothing was ever the final end, not death nor taxes nor insane man with a knife.  Better he should know, and be able to do something about it, maybe.  Tilting Spike’s chin up, Xander waited.

“There’s a party, few nights from now.  A pre-New Years thing.  At Babylon.”

Xander sipped and nodded, fingers busy petting the dip at the bottom of Spike’s back without knowing if he was soothing Spike or himself.

“Want us to go,” Spike asked.  “And, maybe, pick up a third for the night.”

He continued to breathe evenly, so many different possible reactions that he was left with nothing but calm.  A third.  They’d talked about it, of course.  Two guys who loved to fuck as much as they did, and it would’ve been more surprising if they hadn’t thought about it.  Xander’s cock had drooled its pleasure at the possibility, but it’d taken his head a few weeks longer to agree, details worked to the smallest contingency and Spike repeatedly promising in ways that made mere words pale by comparison that this wasn’t a backhanded way of saying he was unhappy or wanted to return to his old trade.

“You already have someone in mind,” Xander guessed, the only real explanation for why Spike was so nervous, statue still in Xander’s arms, as if expected blows or being shoved out into the cold, pregnant night.  “Someone you’re not sure I’ll agree to.  Someone you want.”

The word echoed like a bell-chime, lingering in the air long after Xander spoke it.  “Yes,” Spike said.

It wasn’t the spirit of gift-giving that prompted Spike to ask this now, he knew, Spike’s lack of everything making it clear that Spike hadn’t planned this, hadn’t even know he was going to ask before the words formed in his mouth.  Xander’s hand stilled, thinking for a long moment.  Babylon.  Someone, or something, that had to do with Babylon, and the mess of neuroses Xander had about being out and gay and sparkly the way he’d never considered himself to be.

“Okay.”

They didn’t have sex that night, not even after the presents were opened to reveal a plethora of toys they’d given each other, along with everything else.  Instead they went to bed, wrapped up and around each other in a way that made Xander grateful only one of them had to breathe.  Because he wasn’t going to let go, not for any reason at all, and Spike clutched him just as tightly.


End file.
